Seventeen-year-old Karou, a lovely, enigmatic art student in a Prague boarding school, carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters--the chimaerae who form the only family she has ever known.

From the Publisher:Seventeen-year-old Karou, a lovely, enigmatic art student in a Prague boarding school, carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters--the chimaerae who form the only family she has ever known.

Annotation:The eternally compelling dance of angels and demons is transformed into pure magic in Laini Taylor's fantastical young adult novel. Living in Prague and studying art, blue-haired Karou longs to know where she comes from. But Brimestone, one of the kind monsters who raised her, refuses to tell Karou anything. Careful to keep her school life separate from her dark family life, Karou crosses through portals, traveling the world in search of all manner of teeth for Brimstone. But when she finds a series of black handprints on the portals and is viciously attacked by an angel in Marrakesh, everything changes and Karou is plunged into painful, starcrossed love and an ancient battle that could mean the end of everything.

Praise

"The plot hinges on major contrivances, but along with writing in such heightened language that even casual banter often comes off as wildly funny, the author crafts a fierce heroine with bright-blue hair, tattoos, martial skills, a growing attachment to a preternaturally hunky but not entirely sane warrior and, in episodes to come, an army of killer angels to confront." (Starred review) 08/15/2011